Disaster - Japan races to cool stricken nuclear reactors

Now Playing: Disaster - Japan races to cool stricken nuclear reactors - 16 March, 2011

Description: Japan Meltdown Workers at Fukushima nuclear plant return to work after high radiation forced them to briefly abandon their posts. Workers battling to contain the crisis at Japan's quake-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant were briefly moved to a bunker because of a rise in radiation levels, local media has reported. The level of radiation at the plant surged to 1000 millisieverts early on Wednesday before coming down to 800-600 millisieverts. Harry Fawcett, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Japan, said the workers struggling to avert a nuclear meltdown were allowed to return to the facility later. "The 70 workers who were taken into that protective bunker were able to go back and restart operations crucial to keeping this entire plant cool," he said. "They have been pumping sea water into the reactors; the ones that were active before the earthquake and the ones which were just housing spent fuel," he added. Yukio Edano, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, said the workers dousing the reactors in a frantic effort to cool them needed to be taken to safety after an explosion a day earlier in the complex's Unit 4 reactor led to a surge in radiation. The blast is thought to have damaged the reactor's suppression chamber, a water-filled pipe outside the nuclear core that is part of the emergency cooling system. Hajimi Motujuku, a spokesman for the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, said the outer housing of the containment vessel at the Number 4 unit in the plant was in flames on ...
Tags: Japan Disaster News 2011 Sendai Japan 8.9 Magnitude Earthquake Added: 17-03-11 Views: (311)